SMA Ground Fault troubleshooting advice. [RE-wrenches]

[David Palumbo, Independent Power & Light]

Wrenches,

I have a grid tied system with a SB3800U inverter being fed by 2 strings of
(12) Evergreen 180's (4.32kW). UniRack rail mounted on garage roof. Good
installation all wiring neat and well supported. Only DC bond to ground is
in the inverter etc. And no external monitoring equipment.

The system has been operating very well (over 5,000 kWh over 2 months in
Northern Vermont), this is the first problem.

We are in the middle of a snowy spell and the array is covered in snow, but
I should be able to check out the array within a few days. According to the
error message on the Sunny Boy the GFDI 1 amp fuse is open. The array has
made it through lots of rain, ice and snow over the past year.

My suspicion is in the MC connector(s) themselves. We had a bad batch of MC
cables purchased from a large distributor 12 to 18 months ago. The MC
connector would pull off the wire when tested. Of course not all of them
where tested before they got into the field, so one could be on this roof.

Obviously I will check connections in the combiner, the dc disconnect etc,
could be a moisture issue. Of course it could be a squirel I guess.

Any advice on troubleshooting this ground fault would be appreciated. Safety
wise do we need to cover the array with a dark tarp?

Dave


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